Examples

The bishop puts the stole (orarium) on the left shoulder of a deacon, and delivers a "ferula" to an archdeacon and archpriest, a "manuale" (book of sacraments) to a priest, and a staff and book of the Rule to an abbot.

What advantage is it to be a man, over it is to be a boy at school, if we have only escaped the ferula to come under the fescue of an Imprimatur; if serious and elaborate writings, as if they were no more than the theme of a grammar-lad under his pedagogue, must not be uttered without the cursory eyes of a temporizing and extemporizing licenser?

Others think that this proverb admonisheth the guests to forget everything that is spoken or done in company; and agreeably to this, the ancients used to consecrate forgetfulness with a ferula to Bacchus, thereby intimating that we should either not remember any irregularity committed in mirth and company, or apply a gentle and childish correction to the faults.

Sertorius, began to waver and revolt; whereupon Sertorius uttered various arrogant and scornful speeches against Pompey, saying in derision, that he should want no other weapon but a ferula and rod to chastise this boy with, if he were not afraid of that old woman, meaning Metellus.

A great number of Christians of {364} all ages and sexes were banished, beaten, and tortured divers ways, especially by being buffeted on the face with a terrible kind of armed ferula, one blow of which would knock the teeth out, and make the head swell exceedingly.

What advantage is it to be a man over it is to be a boy at school, if we have only escaped the ferula to come under the fescue of an Imprimatur? if serious and elaborate writings, as if they were no more than the theme of a grammar-lad under his pedagog, must not be uttered without the cursory eyes of a temporizing and extemporizing licenser?